


Visions Made of Swallowed Dreams

by muchlessvermillion



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Humanstuck, Multi, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Witches
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-12
Updated: 2018-08-23
Packaged: 2019-06-09 11:32:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15266592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/muchlessvermillion/pseuds/muchlessvermillion
Summary: Eridan and Feferi are doing pretty great, actually. They're both 20-year-old witches and college students, taking classes and sharing an apartment with their best friend of seven years (each other). Sure, there's some family issues, but who doesn't have those? Despite (or because of?) their insanely different magical styles, they mesh well, and they've been doing magic together about as long as they've known each other.The one problem? You need at least three witches to form a coven. And Feferi is really, REALLY sure that a coven is exactly what they need to move to the next stage of magical prowess. So now they're on the lookout for a third person that meshes well with them magically as well as emotionally, and it's a little harder than it looks.Sollux is a 19-year-old technopagan working part-time in I.T. at the same community college he attends. The same community college Eridan and Feferi attend, actually. He is decidedly NOT looking for a coven.It looks like he's getting one anyway.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MadMaxArt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadMaxArt/gifts).



> The prompt was: I LOVE AUs of any kind, things that always connect these three through anything. I kind of see it as destiny in a way, and how their relationship is always changing (sometimes its a platonic 3x matespriteship, sometimes it's all pale, sometimes Fef is mediating between Sollux and Eridan, etc. etc.) The amount of possibilities for these three is what's most exciting for me. It can be any sort of AU (beforus, human, fantasy, *historical* (I love historical but I can see why it might be tricky to pull off), etc.) Sensual/sexytime stuff is cool too (artful nudity? ;D )
> 
> I hope you enjoy this! I got a little carried away with the prompt, which is why it is... chapters. It's still chugging away heartily, and all chapters should be up before the author reveal.
> 
> Tags and such will also be updated as the chapters are added, to properly reflect the fic (and the future sex magic within) as I do not want to confuse people with premature tagging.

Eridan’s family had a magical legacy that spanned generations, as his father delighted in reminding him. It was one of those things he’d thought he could use to impress people as a kid, until he realized his classmates were, by and large, far more concerned with who got the new Nintendo product the fastest. His father had sat him down and explained to him that plenty of people didn’t _understand_ the value of their history: as far as the layman was concerned, nearly anyone with enough natural power (or an unnatural determination) could do magic. The difference was that the Amporas did it _right._ His father didn’t mind differences of culture and history, but openly disdained the new age-y magics that didn’t follow any tradition or book. He called them unrooted. Swinging in the wind, undisciplined and fleeting.

Of course, Eridan then met Feferi in eighth grade, just in time for her to start to explore exactly that type of magic.

For her, it was something like rebellion, and something Eridan couldn’t do. It had always been understood, in the walls of the Ampora household, that Eridan and his brother wouldn’t go off to college when the rest of their graduating class did. That staying in town was the best option for their continuing magical education, that they couldn’t learn it anywhere better than they could near to the family library that held the meticulous notes of their ancestors and the stories of what they would be. It was no big deal, he figured; plenty of people took a few years between high school and college. Maybe they weren’t all doing the same things with it, but he had always known this was what it meant to be an Ampora. He’d bartered with his father for the right to take his gen-eds at the local community college so he could graduate earlier when he finally went, and he organized his life around where he knew he’d be. He’d attend classes on history and whatever else it was he wanted to learn that didn’t have to do with spells or wands, he’d go to his father at least once a week to perfect his craft, he’d strive to better it in daily life, he’d learn.

Feferi hadn’t had any such restrictions on leaving town, but before she was in her senior year, she was practically disowning herself. By the time some of their classmates (not all; the wealthier ones, or the ones with the fattest ambitions or the fattest scholarships, or those who just needed to get away more than they needed to do anything else) were packing up to move to bigger cities, Feferi was getting ready to sustain herself financially. Her mother assumed she’d get a taste of it and come crawling back, which only made her more determined to stay away. She applied to jobs and work study and financial aid and she, too, signed up for the college Eridan was planning on attending part-time, her face fixed firm and gleeful.

And that was how they had ended up here; sharing a little two-bedroom apartment not far from campus, because it was the most help Fef would take, while Eridan’s father shook his head because his room at the Ampora house was bigger and empty and waiting. But this was different. This was better.  

 

On a lazy winter weekend, one of those where you avoided going outside at all costs and considered ordering Indian food by delivery so you didn’t have to leave the safety of your blankets, Feferi revived the conversation that she had been plaguing Eridan with for weeks.

He was a little offended she did it in his own home, but in her defense, it was her home too.

Here was the thing: Feferi may have been one of those touchy-feely witches that didn’t like books or writing down what worked best, but there were some rules _everyone_ seemed to follow, no matter how they did their magic or where it came from.

One such rule? You need at least three people to form a proper coven. That was just kind of how it worked; with two people, it wasn’t a coven so much as it was a pair of witches doing magic next to each other. Which wasn’t to say no one chose to _be_ two witches performing magic together, or one witch performing magic alone; it was just that you couldn’t call it a coven. You needed more than two, with no real upper limit. Different numbers were good for different things. Three and seven were particularly magic numbers, but four meant one for each of the elements, each of the directions, which could give you a major boost. Some had dozens, and split into smaller groups depending on what was being done. It was individual, like magic itself. Magic was personal. Magic was intimate. Magic depended on who you were. You had to trust your coven, even when you didn’t like them.

Feferi was _very_ insistent that they follow this rule.

“Having a third would do _wonders_ for us, is all!” Feferi said, carefully smoothing another rhinestoned sticker onto her phone case. Her feet were all tucked up under the afghan, an ugly knitted thing that Eridan didn’t like having on the couch when company was over, but which couldn’t be beat for warmth. “I can _feel_ it, Eridan.”

“You feel a whole lotta things,” Eridan grouched, curled up on the other half of the couch.

“And I am usually right! You at least have to admit that much!”

“I don’t _have_ to do anythin, Fef. I’m a grown man.” Feferi sighed, and tugged at him. There was no use resisting. Within moments, he had been maneuvered until his head lay in her lap. She rooted her fingers in his hair, mussing it beyond repair, and scratched at his scalp slow and careful with manicured nails. He plucked the glasses off his face so they wouldn’t be so in the way, and squinted up at her with narrowed eyes. She stared back, unflinching. “I don’t even know where we’d start,” Eridan said eventually. “We don’t know anyone that sounds a good fit. I dunno what we’d do to find someone. Not everyone does magic, and not everyone that does wants a _coven_.” Immediately, Feferi brightened.

“Actually!” she said, drawing the word out too long. “I have an idea for that!”

“A’fuckin’course you do,” he sighed. She had probably waited with bated breath for the moment he’d finally say yes, never a doubt in her mind that he would.

When Feferi had decided he was suitably petted and docile, she shoved him back to sitting and went for her laptop. It, too, was covered in stickers; hologram fish, and glittery rainbow stars, and a cat with its tongue out, and something supremely weird that featured a mermaid in a gas mask.

 

(“What the hell is she wearin a gas mask for, Fef?” Eridan had asked when she first put it on. “There’s no gas underwater.”

“You don’t KNOW that,” Feferi had answered. “You’re not a mermaid expert.”)

 

With her laptop balanced on her knees, Feferi pulled up a website she’d bookmarked, and waited for Eridan to read over her shoulder.

On the screen was a witch-focused internet forum. Eridan had heard of them, but never sought one out himself. It seemed kinda silly, to him, depending on a bunch of internet strangers for their magical opinions when you could just look to your local community, or, better yet, find a book with the answers. Though he supposed some people might not have much of a magical community.

The point was: _they_ did. Have a local magical community, that is. So he wasn’t sure why Feferi was looking online.  

The forum boasted a whole host of different boards for different topics: things like ‘kitchen magic’ or ‘divination’, ‘general questions’ and ‘working with crystals’ and ‘recommendations for magical media’. Feferi scrolled past all of it, and clicked on a board entitled ‘local ads’, triumphant.

“Oh, no,” Eridan said.

“Oh, yes.”

“Couldn’t we just put a post on Facebook, or somethin’?”

“How is _that_ any better? Just look at it.” She jabbed a finger at the screen. “See, it’s organized by area, so it’s easy to navigate -and we don’t have to get too specific about where we are, at first, we can wait for responses and then talk in private to confirm they’re cool, and, like, real people, and exchange photos and stuff, and _then_ meet in person, see, we can just put the general area to start with and if someone is too far away we can just keep looking- and people post looking for sellers, or just people to talk to, or--” She waved at the screen with a little flourish. “Potential coven members!”

“It just seems so embarrassin’,” Eridan said, well aware he was whining. “Begging online for total strangers to take pity on us, makin’ it look like we can’t find anyone to join us the normal way.”

“There’s a big difference between ‘can’t’ and ‘haven’t yet’! Besides, Eridan, this is the internet era! Modern witches take advantage of modern benefits. For some people this _is_ the normal way. There’s no rule anywhere that you have to meet your coven by, like, bumping into them looking for the same book, or through your families, or whatever.”

Eridan was sure his father would have something to say about ‘modern witches’. It probably seemed real unwitchy to him, dealing in in computers, rather than flesh and blood. Still, he squinted at the screen, pushing his glasses up his nose when they started to slip. There were pages of posts. A post to find someone to look after a familiar while the owner was away. A post looking for a buyer or a taker for a set of tarot cards the poster hadn’t vibed with. And, like Feferi had said, a variety of people looking for coven members, or a local coven to join, or questions about particularly magical spots in their city where covens liked to meet.

“What would we even say?” Eridan asked, and Feferi grinned at him and cracked her fingers and pressed the ‘new post’ button.

“I thought we could figure that out together.”

 

In the end, the ad they posted (after much editing and fiddling and one instance where Eridan reached across Feferi, shoved a hand into her face, and deleted a whole paragraph, because it may be her account, but it was representing him too, goddammit) read:

TWO WITCHES SEEKING (AT LEAST!!) A THIRD IN THE AREA TO JOIN US AND MAKE A COVEN!

We’re both 20, and it’d be great to get someone around the same age, but we don’t discriminate! We are ALSO both bi, so you better be cool! If you’re not, don’t bother replying! We don’t want to do magic with anyone who won’t respect our identities. We’ve been friends for like seven years, but we promise you will be fully included and involved! If we wanted to just do magic by ourselves, we’d do that, and not go through the effort to make a fuckin post about it.

We’re also not looking for anyone that’s going to be weird or elitist about magic type. We have pretty different styles, and we’re happy to try working with all sorts of different kinds of witches to see what clicks!! Obviously some types balance out better than others when put together, so there will be some things that fit better. But we don’t think any one magic type is inherently better than all others, and we don’t want to have to defend how we do things. One of us follows a very strict set of guidelines, which doesn’t mean you have to, but he doesn’t want to be talked out of it.

Input is welcome, though!!! We’re not saying we don't want to learn!

We’d love flexibility, an experimental heart, and a willingness to see what happens! A lot of interesting things can happen when a coven brings different magical styles together. We’re just looking for one person to start, but who knows what might happen!

If this sounds like something you might be interested in, or you think you fit what’s described and you’re in the area, feel free to send me a PM and we can figure out if you’re close enough by and if it seems like a good combo, and if so we can meet up and see if it works.

And if you know me (it’ll be pretty obvious, I have a selfie as my icon!) text me or facebook message me or something letting me know you saw this, haha! Maybe there’s people we didn’t even know were looking!

Eridan thought there were a few too many exclamation points, but trying to keep Feferi from typing with them was an undertaking he was never going to even attempt. And it _did_ fit the way she actually spoke. There were pieces from both of them scattered throughout, which made it feel like they were advertising themselves as people- which he supposed they were, in a way. Covens could get real intimate.

Not necessarily in the traditional way; not everyone that was in a coven together spent all their time together outside of it, or even were friends, though plenty did get close. To have someone else do your magic with you was to accept that they’d feel it on a level most people never would, a level that before then may have been reserved for your closest friends and family. It was to accept that they’d help your work along, that you’d use their energy and power and vice versa. Whatever your beliefs were, wherever you believed the source of your power was, it was still a fact that your magic either had to originate inside you or use you as a conduit to funnel it from somewhere else. Having a coven was to let someone else feel that while it still existed within you.

On one hand, that was a little bit terrifying. On the other? Covens allowed you to do things you just couldn’t on your own. Amporas had always been in covens, even if they did some of their best work solo. Eridan wasn’t going to be the outlier.

The idea that someone they knew already might see this hadn’t occurred to him until Feferi decided to write in a line about it, but he figured that someone willing to utilize one of these forums had to be at least somewhat forward thinking, perhaps enough so that they wouldn’t care that Feferi had talked him into putting his _sexuality_ on the _internet_. (She was right, though. He wouldn’t want to get someone into a coven and then find out that’d be a problem once they’d already gone through the whole damn thing.)

Feferi was practically vibrating. It was shocking she’d managed to wait as long as she did, and hadn’t just gone ahead to make a post by herself. She jumped at every single buzz of her phone, and she’d started refreshing the forum the moment they posted, despite Eridan’s complaints that they had to give people time to _read_ it, Fef, goddamn. She couldn’t _wait_ to see what kind of responses they got.

Eridan wasn’t convinced they were going to get a response at all.


	2. Chapter 2

Eridan was wrong.

Feferi, very kindly, was doing her best not to gloat. It wasn’t as difficult as it usually might’ve been, because though they had gotten plenty of forum responses, it wasn’t quite working out how she had envisioned.

It turned out that finding people that were interested, even though they didn’t live in a big city, was just the beginning, despite feeling practically insurmountable a few weeks ago.

What came next was much harder.

People responded. People even messaged Feferi on Facebook, people she’d met, or had classes with, or was friends with. The problem wasn’t getting respondents.

The problem was:

Rose ran an all-woman coven. She wasn’t looking to join as much as she was looking to recruit. There would be space for Feferi in it, but not, obviously, for Eridan. She had smiled with all her teeth, her mouth shellacked black and purple, and told Feferi that if she ever changed her mind, she was only a text away-- and that they did good work. Eridan was almost surprised she didn’t carry business cards.

Aradia was someone Feferi already knew and liked. They hadn’t been close in high school, but they had started hanging out once in a while in the past year. They got along _well_ , always talking easily and without pretense, and Feferi had been really excited when she got her message. And then, of course, Aradia had met up with them at the little fountain on the very edge of campus, and her eyes had gone blank white, and black had crept over her soft dark hands like spilled ink, up her veins and vibrating around her skin, and light and dark had slipped together from her fingers, and all the grass she stood on went dead. And it was _impressive_ , obviously, _fuck_ it was impressive-- but Feferi’s magic was life-focused, and Aradia was all death, and the problem wasn’t that they couldn’t work together, but that they’d need another balancer, a buffer, if they wanted it to shake out right. And Eridan’s magic wouldn’t work for it. At least not on his own. It was more of a _maybe someday_ than a no, but it still didn’t matter if they couldn’t find someone else to keep them all even. (Aradia and Feferi had made plans to get coffee, though, at least.)

Cronus was an immediate no. Eridan didn’t even know why his brother had bothered to contact them online when he could’ve just said something during the weekly family dinner. Either way, he did _not_ want another Ampora in his coven, watching how he worked and seeing every time he slipped and knowing just how far Fef veered from the organized path.

Meulin didn’t live in town, but she had a car and could drive. Eridan didn’t know sign, and Feferi only knew the basics, but Meulin also carried a notebook and was the quickest texter they’d ever seen. The problem wasn’t so apparent, here. There was nothing _wrong_ with Meulin. She seemed nice enough. It just didn’t click right. They tried, they sat together and they tried, and she clutched the chunk of malachite strung around her neck, and she wove magic with her fingers and sign language instead of reciting spells, but it just... Fizzled. Like doing magic in the same room, rather than together. They all agreed it wasn’t right. They promised they’d tell her if they found someone else that seemed like a better option for her, and she gave them big hugs as she left.

And so it went. For weeks. Some never even got to the audition stage. Some people were rude, or kind of creepy, or just too far away.

 

And then, one morning, Feferi gasped and nearly upturned her orange juice into Eridan’s Honey Nut Cheerios.

“Jesus hell, Fef, what is it?” Eridan asked, dragging his eyes away from his game of knockoff Bejeweled. She gripped his shoulder, making a concentrated attempt to dig short-cut nails into his skin.

“One of the moderators on the forum lives _here!_ ” Feferi waved her phone at him. “Here!”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes! Yes, absolutely yes! Look!” The next thing he knew, she was behind him, her phone shoved in front of his face and both her arms circumventing his neck so she could keep pointing. Feferi cleared her throat, and then read out the passage she was indicating in a voice that wasn’t her own, though Eridan had no idea what she was trying to base it on. “‘Someone charmed the fuckugly statue of the high school’s founder to insult passerby and it wasn’t even me, lmfao. I passed it on the way to work today--” It was spelled ‘2day’, and she tried her best to emphasize the number, though she was also breaking up sentences, rather than reading the post as the awful run-on it was. “--and tbh I’m super depressed that people only started finding chinks in the defensive spells on that stupid thing after I graduated, but I can’t prank a high school now, that’s creepy as hell. Guess I have to settle for way better shit, lol.’”

“...I guess that the odds that another statue got spelled similarly this week--”

“Are practically nonexistent, Eridan!” Feferi clicked on the moderator’s profile, returning to her seat at the kitchen table. She flopped into it with a little frown. “But he didn’t respond to our ad.”

“Maybe he’s not looking for a coven?” Eridan offered. “Or he’s got one already?”

“He doesn’t _mention_ any covens in his posts,” Feferi responded, scrolling through. “But he doesn’t have his stupid name or anything on here, even though he posts all the time! Augh, and he’s gotta be nearby, if he walked past the statue on the way to work!” Eridan watched over her shoulder as she scoured the profile for hints. “The least he could do is let us give him a shot, right? Right? We had _so_ many people respond that didn’t work, it’s not fair to hold out on us!”

“Hold up,” Eridan said, his mouth suddenly going dry.

“Oh, I know what you’re going to say, I know I sound ridiculous.”

“No, you _don’t_. I know who this _is._ ”

“What?” Feferi asked, her voice pitching up into a screech. “You do? How? Who?” It was Eridan’s turn to take control of the phone, scrolling back to a post she’d gone past without any notice. It featured a photo of a sigil sloppily drawn on the back of a phone case in silver sharpie. But what Eridan was focused on was the hand in the picture. Every single nail was adorned with chipped nail polish in alternating red and blue, the color glaring bright.

“Look at that,” he said, and Feferi leaned in and squinted at the screen, as if it would reveal all its secrets if she could just look at it closer. “ _That_ is Sollux Captor.” Sollux Captor had been in high school with them, though they’d hardly spoken. Eridan largely remembered him as a scrawny kid on the edge of things, eyes glued to his laptop screen. More importantly, though, he was one of those that had stayed in town after graduation.

“Are you sure?” Feferi asked, and she sounded so thrilled it made him a little nervous.

“Course I’m sure,” Eridan scoffed. “No one else in this whole town does their nails like that. I’d recognize those garish fingernails anywhere. He’s always in the damn computer lab when I’ve gotta print my essays out. I think he’s doing something part-time with the IT department. He’s definitely not doing it as a full-time job, I’ve seen him in classes before. He _better_ be getting paid, or he’s just doing it for fun, and that’d be so sad I’d almost have to feel bad for him.” Eridan squinted at the phone screen, zooming in further on the damning picture. “How the hell did _he_ end up moderator on a site like this? Is some mediocre html really all it takes?” He turned to Feferi, only to find her already looking at him, beaming. “Oh, Fef. No. No _way_. Guy’s an asshole. Once I couldn’t get the printer working and he spent the whole time bitchin’ me out about it, even though it’s his damn _job_ to fix the thing. What’s he gotta do that’s so much more important? And besides, he didn’t even try to join us! There ain’t any point.” Feferi shook her head, a gleam in her eye that meant business.

“We haven’t had any luck so far, right? Even with the people that _did_ want in. And we’re running out of options! We might as well try.” She pressed a finger to his nose. “Let’s go talk to him. Today. After classes. We should at least see if he fits with us. It can’t hurt to give it a shot!”


	3. Chapter 3

Eridan _did_ want a coven, was the thing. So when Feferi texted him through his Early American Lit class with Plan: Talk to Sollux Captor, he helped her figure out the details. The best time to approach would probably be when Sollux was in the computer lab for his shift; the one place they knew for sure they could pin him down. And, yeah, sure, it was maybe bad form to invite someone into a coven in their place of work where they couldn’t run away. But neither of them knew Sollux Captor well enough to guarantee he’d even talk to them if they tried somewhere else.

His schedule was easy enough to sort out; Eridan could at least remember the basic timeframe within which he’d seen Sollux in the lab before, and then all they could do was hope it hadn’t changed. It had to be fairly consistent, with him being a student; a work schedule could change but classes wouldn’t.

By the time two o’clock rolled around and Eridan was finishing off the last of his Wednesday classes, he was jittery despite himself.

Feferi breezed down the hallway to meet him, hair twisted up on top of her head and wearing enough jewelry to add a few extra pounds. He knew her well enough to know it was all magic and luck related, wire-wrapped crystals on throat and wrist and fingers, all meant to bring what she needed. Amethyst, and jade, and rose quartz, and citrine, and carnelian. She had finished her last class a couple of hours ago, but curled up under a tree despite the bitter winter winds to wait.

“I don’t see why you dressed up,” Eridan said. “He’s probably gonna say no. You’re gettin’ your hopes up for nothin’.”

“I don’t see how it’s any worse than you purposely not dressing up to avoid looking like you care,” Feferi retorted, and hooked her warm arm through his. She steered him onward while he sputtered.

The computer lab was smaller than it should have been, for a school this size, but that may have been because the extra computers in the library staved off much of the printing needs. The perk of the computer lab was that it was closer to the nearest coffee shop, and had some equipment the library didn’t, for the more technically inclined. It was square all over, a square room with square monitors lined up on rows of square tables, and the color scheme was all gray and black and beige. Not particularly inspiring. The only dots of color came from the students themselves, but the room wasn’t particularly crowded this soon after lunch.

Sollux was crouched by the room’s sole working printer, muttering to himself as he changed out the ink.

“So,” Eridan muttered, gripping Feferi’s wrist. “How do we approach him? What do we start with?”

“Hi!” Feferi chirped, hauling Eridan forward with no strategy at all. Sollux looked up, his nose scrunched beneath the bridge of his glasses.

“If you could give me a sec,” he said, turning back to the printer. He had an atrocious lisp, because of course he did. Eridan hadn’t remembered quite how bad it was. “I’m busy, but I’ll help you with your Word document or whatever after I finish this.” Eridan huffed.

“I know my way around Microsoft Office just fine, thank you very much,” he said. Feferi tapped her sandaled foot, smile still firmly in place, and waited until the cartridges were loaded and Sollux was standing back up. He was slightly taller than Eridan, but shorter than Feferi, which was at least a little victory.

“Actually, we don’t want to ask you about any techy stuff! We wanted to ask to see if you’d fit well in our coven!” Despite the way Sollux’s face went blank, Feferi’s smile persisted.

“I’m not looking for a coven,” he responded, and then squinted at her. “Wait, I recognize you. You put an ad up.” She nodded. “What, are you approaching me because I’m a mod? Was not responding to the ad not enough of a _hint?_ How did you even find me?”  

“For starters,” Eridan broke in. “We couldn’t care less that you’re a moderator on some ridiculous website. What kind of special privileges do you think we’re anglin’ for, here? A banner under our damn username?”

“Eridan recognized your fingernails,” Feferi said, bright. “From your post with the sigil.”

“ _Fef_!” Eridan intoned, scandalized. Sollux sniggered, looking surprised by it even as it left his mouth.

“Well, _that_ at least is some dedication. I’ll give you that much.”

“It isn’t that weird!” Eridan protested. “We went to high school with you. We go to college with you now. If you didn’t want people recognizing your stupid, ugly fingernails, you shouldn’t paint them like that.”

“Whoa,” Sollux said. “Don’t blame me for your weird obsessions.” ‘Obsessions’ sounded awful coming from his mouth. He clicked his tongue, and Eridan was sure he saw a flash of a piercing, just for a second.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Eridan spat, especially bothered because he _was_ bothered. “I got an eye for detail.”

“Okay!” Feferi said. “So this is going nowhere! Sollux, I’d _love_ to hear why you’re not interested in a coven. It doesn’t seem like you have one. And it’s super likely it’d make you more powerful. Even if it isn’t in the traditional sense, what you might learn from even a bit of time in a coven can broaden your horizons a _ton_.”

“I don’t need to be any more powerful,” Sollux said, crossing skinny arms over a skinny chest.

“What’s _that_ supposed to mean?” Eridan asked.

“It means what I said. I don’t need to be any more powerful. I’m more than powerful enough. I can make shit happen in my fucking sleep.” His expression was strange, though he was going for a cocky grin. It seemed uncomfortable. Maybe a little upset. Maybe. Feferi’s smile widened, an anglerfish who had just lured someone with her light. She went up on her toes slightly, and Eridan immediately recognized the look of a Peixes that was about to win an argument.

“Well, if _that’s_ your problem, then you should know that covens have been shown to help redirect and balance out excess magical power! _Meaning_ that being in one for a while could help you gain control and put your abilities to constructive use!” Sollux sighed.

“I guess I’ve heard that one. But--”

“But what?” Feferi asked. “You didn’t think it’d work for you? Trust me, cuddlefish, no matter how powerful you are, I promise there have been people like you before.”

“Cuddle- _what_?” Sollux asked.

“It doesn’t matter,” Eridan said. “She’s makin’ good points, right?” He tried not to sound too eager. He didn’t even _want_ Sollux fuckin’ Captor in his godforsaken coven, even less so now that he’d talked to the guy some more, but he _wanted_ a coven, and it wasn’t like they were swimming in options. Why not try this, when none of the others so far had worked? Especially if the guy was half as powerful as he seemed to think he was.

“They’re not… bad points, I guess,” Sollux conceded. “Still doesn’t mean I want a fucking coven.”

“Okay,” Feferi started, putting a thoughtful hand on her chin. “But what if you _tried_ a fucking coven?” There was a silence, while all three of them worked through that one. Finally, Sollux groaned.

“I’m willing to _try_ , I guess. But I’m out ASAP if there aren’t results.”

“Well, in that case, I’ll only accept a a serious try!” Feferi responded, utterly pleased. “You have to give it at _least_ a few weeks. A month? And you have to put in some real effort. You won’t know it doesn’t work if you don’t give it a genuine shot, and wouldn’t it bother you, to never know if it might’ve?” She looked at Eridan, as if she wasn’t already completely made up about it. “Eridan?”

“Well,” he said, stalling just a little bit with both their eyes on him. “I _s’pose_ we can give it a shot. But it’s a trial basis, alright? We don’t even know if it’ll work.”

“Perfect!” Feferi pulled her phone from her pocket, her bracelets jangling as she moved. “Let’s trade numbers and find a day to give it a whirl.”


	4. Chapter 4

It took about a week before they could meet up again, with Sollux citing a busy schedule that he had to rearrange. Feferi suspected he was stalling, hoping to run out his agreed-upon trial time a little faster, but the joke was on him: he didn’t know she wasn’t starting the countdown until they’d made sure this would work. There was no point, if it didn’t. 

Feferi insisted on privacy, for this one, strange in that most of their meetings thus far had taken place in parks, or coffee shops. Sollux agreed weirdly readily, and even though Feferi had been the one to ask, she protested.

FEFERI: What if we were serial killers! You don’t know!

SOLLUX: fuck, okay, then serial kill me. then i dont have to go to class on monday, whatever.

ERIDAN: we wouldnt be very good serial killers if we were gonna kill someone that phone records would show we were meetin up with anyway

SOLLUX: you know, im kind of more worried that hes thought about this.

When Sollux arrived later that day, all hunched over with his hands deep in his front pockets, they were ready for him.

“There’s snacks,” Feferi said, pointing to the platter on the coffee table, which, coincidentally, was the only table they owned. Cheese and fruit were fanned across the plate, with black-red cherries piled on one side and whole-grain crackers lined up in a row like soldiers. Eridan had done his best to make it look nice, albeit grudgingly. Feferi had no respect for food aesthetics. She figured it all looked the same once you got it in your mouth anyway. She oohed and ahhed over fancy iced cupcakes or latte art, but had no sense of the visuals when it came to regular foods, no matter how often Eridan told her that it was ‘part of makin somethin appetizin’. 

“Oh, great,” Sollux said, not sounding all that enthused. “At least I’ll be well fed when this gets humiliating and awkward.” 

“I told you we shouldn’t have wasted the goat cheese on him, Fef,” Eridan said. 

“Eridan, I promise you someone will eat the goat cheese. And then we can buy more goat cheese. Sollux, do you wanna come in?”

“I’m in,” he said. 

“I mean further in,” Feferi qualified. “You’re still on the mat. We have a whole couch.”

“Well,” Sollux said. “If you’ve got a whole couch.” He sat, popping a cherry into his mouth and winding its detached stem around his fingers. Feferi flung herself down in one of the armchairs that sat kitty corner across the coffee table, leaving Eridan to take either the other half of the couch, between the two of them, or the other armchair, next to Feferi but a whole seat and a half away from Sollux. He picked the couch. “So,” Sollux started, cherry pit still clacking around behind his teeth. “How do we do this?” There was a pause. “You do know, right? You invited me here, I thought you would’ve done some research or something.” 

“We do know!” Feferi protested. “Haven’t you ever heard of gathering your thoughts?”

“No,” Sollux said.

“Oh my god,” Eridan groaned. 

“To start with,” Feferi said, and kicked Eridan in the shin. 

“Ow,” Eridan replied, just for show, because she really hadn’t kicked him all that hard. “Fuckin’ hell, alright. We should talk about our types a magic. Like, explain them, so we have an idea for how they’ll go.” When no one else immediately spoke, he continued. “Like… I’m pretty traditional, I guess.”

“Right,” Sollux said, with a level of certainty Eridan didn’t much like. “You’re an Ampora, aren’t you.”

“I like to treat it more like a science, I guess,” Eridan barrelled on, determined to get all the way through his thought. “You know, follow guidelines for things. Experiment with it by tweakin’ what I do and writin’ down the results so I can find the best way. I got a grimoire. And I like to work off spells an’ ideas that other people have done before and recorded. It helps me to have some structure.” He glanced at Feferi, and she nodded encouragingly. She was leaning forward excitedly in her seat, so much so he was almost surprised she hadn’t tipped over.

“And I do things mostly by intuition, actually!” Feferi said. “Some things just feel right. I really can’t explain it. It’s like… You know when you get the feeling in your gut that something bad is going to happen, and you try to avoid it? It’s like that but good. Really good. My magic is focused a lot around life, and nature, and water. God, I love water. I use it as much as I can in rituals. Oh, and crystals, and stuff like that! Different minerals and cool rocks.”

“God,” Sollux started, and then just begun laughing, looking like he really couldn’t help himself. They both stared at him, and waited. “Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum over here,” he gasped out, finally. “With the exact opposite magic procedures. It’s like a Lifetime movie. How do you two even work?”

“We work just fine. Mostly we focus our intentions on the same goal, when we’re doing magic together, and then we do things our own way and let it mingle naturally,” Feferi answered, unperturbed. 

"If you’re gettin’ to the same place who cares if you take a different route?” Eridan added, slightly more defensive. “You still end up there.”

“What about you, Sollux?” Feferi asked. 

“Technopagan,” Sollux responded. Eridan and Feferi looked at him, expectant.

“Oh, come on,” Eridan said. “You gotta say more than that.”

“Ugh, fine. I’m a new-wave technopagan.” Once he had begun, it was like he couldn’t stop, his words all running together like watercolors. “I incorporate modern technology into old ideas, and do a lot of magic that’s either related to tech, or about tech, or done with tech. You probably won’t get it, right away. Most people don’t. They see a circuit board and are like oh, that absolutely can’t have anything to do with magic, no damn way, I bet he’s just got that out to fuck himself with it, right up the ass with a big old chunk of external hard drive and/or the trackball from a broken down old mouse, there it goes, directly into the rectum. As if magic gives a shit if you pull power from sockets instead of, like, dirt or whatever. People look into the future by casting bones and then look at me weird like circuitry can’t do the same damn thing. At least I didn’t have to touch bones, assholes, you ever think of that? No. No, you didn’t.” 

Eridan and Feferi looked at each other, and he wondered if she was as speechless as he felt. Sollux took the moment to catch his breath.

“I don’t really mind the bones,” Eridan ventured. Feferi immediately started cackling.

“Oh my god!” she said. “Eridan!” 

“What! I was just sayin’! They’re not gross, or anythin’, not if they’re properly cleaned, which they would be, if you were gonna use ‘em for scryin’.” 

“That is so not the point!” Feferi said. Sollux was just kind of looking at them again, his gaze searing through the thick lenses of his glasses. Eridan hated how hard it was to tell what he was thinking. He and Feferi disagreed sometimes, sure, but he always knew what she was feeling, because she had decided years ago that the only way to get what she wanted was to ensure people knew what that was. Sollux, on the other hand, gave off this vibe like he was just waiting for you to show all your cards before he’d tell you how much he knew. 

Or maybe he was just wary of them. Eridan wasn’t sure why he would be. Because they didn’t know him well, maybe? It wasn’t like they were all that terrifying. Or, at least, he wasn’t. He’d wanted to be, once upon a time, but it hadn’t worked. He wasn’t sure how his dad did it.

“We just focus on the same thing, then?” Sollux said. “We just all-- what, do we prep, or something? Do we go for something simple?” 

“I’d say something simple would be best, yeah, for what we’re doing!” Feferi was drumming her shorn-short fingernails, gelled shiny pink, against her armrest. “We don’t want too many frills and whistles, just the magic. To see how it interacts.”

“Frills and whistles ain’t the sayin’,” Eridan said. She waved her hand at him.

“Whatever! Anyone have any ideas?” 

“Just don’t make it, like, picking up the snack plate with no hands, or shit like that,” Sollux said. “Too easy, that doesn’t prove anything.” 

“I’m sure I can come up with something a little more difficult,” Feferi replied, a challenge in her tone. “Though that does give me an idea. What if we each levitate one of the others?” Eridan immediately understood the look on her face; it was significantly harder to manipulate another person than it was to manipulate yourself or an inanimate object. Besides that, most people, even those that weren’t witches themselves, were heavily warded against magical attacks for safety reasons. It didn’t always stop everything, especially if the wards were outdated and the magic was new or especially powerful, but it could cushion a blow, or protect against collateral damage. Unfamiliar magic from a stranger, if it was incompatible enough with your own magic, could set off the wards, whether or not it was actually malicious. 

“Might work,” Eridan said. “But the point is to figure out if our magic works together, isn’t it? Not whether not it’ll make us break out in hives.” 

“No one has ever broken out in hives from my magic,” Feferi said. “I’m not even sure that’s possible.”

“Still,” Eridan said. 

“Do you have a better idea?” Sollux asked, so close next to him on the couch that their knees just barely brushed, and Eridan resented even the possibility that he wouldn’t. 

“Well, what if…” Eridan began, and then thought about it, gnawing on his lower lip. “What if we go off that, but instead of all trying to lift one other, we split our attention? Each of us tries to work together to lift the other two. Half and half. It’ll only work if our magic can work together.” 

“Ooh, Eridan,” Feferi said. “That’s good.” Eridan could feel the beginnings of a pleased flush at the edges of his ears. 

“I thought it might work,” he said. 

“I guess we can try it,” said Sollux, shifting in his seat. 

“Don’t decide it won’t work, already!” Feferi warned. “Don’t jinx us!” 

“I didn’t even say it wouldn’t work, Jesus Christ. I said we could try.”

“I felt your vibes,” Feferi said. “They were doubting vibes.”

“That genuinely means nothing,” Sollux said. “Is the even something you can do? Is that, like, a power you have? Just like that, without doing anything?” Feeling a little bit like a traitor for it, Eridan turned to catch Sollux’s eye, and then shook his head no. Feferi waved her hand, unconcerned. 

“That’s not the point! The point is we should try it.”

“Like… here?” Sollux asked. 

“Why not?” Feferi responded. “It’s not like we’re doing any long-term magic. Just a quickie levitation.”

“Just checking,” Sollux said. “I want you to be aware that you asked for it if I destroy your living room.” Eridan scoffed.

“Try your hardest not to destroy our living room,” Feferi said, the beginnings of a laugh in her throat. “Especially considering this should be an entirely non-destructive spell. It’s just floating. I have no idea what you would have to do wrong to break anything, and I don’t want to find out.” 

“There’s no guarantee it’ll work,” Sollux said, which really didn’t connect to anything.

“Yeah, that’s why we’re trying it, dummy,” Feferi retorted.

“Aren’t you supposed to be wooing me into your coven?” Sollux asked. His glasses were ever-so-slightly askew on his nose, and if things hadn’t been weird enough already, Eridan would have reached to straighten them out. His fingers itched with it. “Wow, I’m so wooed, name-calling is definitely what gets me, you’ve seen right through me.” 

“We don’t have to woo you,” Feferi said. “You already said you’d try. The next few weeks will speak for themselves.” She had pulled all her long, dark hair over one shoulder, and was combing through the ends with her fingers. She looked mellow now, pleased with herself, but Eridan could tell she’d get huffy if they went back and forth like this much longer. 

“You realize I can change my mind at, like, literally any time, right?” Sollux challenged, shifting in his seat. His fingers were rhythmically clenching and unclenching on his thighs, though not out of anger or irritation. He didn’t really seem to be aware of it. “There isn’t a binding contract, or what the fuck ever. I can just leave. I can literally just walk out your front door. It’s right there.”

“Aw, Sollux,” Feferi said, sugar sweet. “But that’d be giving up. For no real reason, too.”

Eridan pulled his wand from the hand-sewn pocket that kept it tucked in his sleeve, feeling the heft of it in his palm, a rod made almost entirely of smooth amethyst. He had similar pockets in basically all of his shirts, for easy access. Not everyone used a conductor to push their magic through. Most people didn’t, probably. But the Amporas had done it that way for a long time.

“Are we doin’ this or not?” Eridan asked. “I’m ready.” 

“Right!” Feferi chirped, clapping her hands together. “Everyone close your eyes. Just for this, even if you wouldn’t usually. If we’re all doing magic at the same time, we shouldn’t worry about how we look doing it.” 

“I don’t do that anyway,” Sollux grumbled, but did as she asked. Eridan closed his eyes too, gripping his wand tight in his hand to ward off the urge to peek. All he had to focus on was using half his energy to lift Sollux, and half to lift Feferi. Or… to lift half of Sollux, and half of Feferi? It had been his idea, but suddenly he wasn’t entirely sure. He didn’t want to ask, though, in case the others had already begun. If the point was to work together, he rationalized, he should focus on that, not on trying to lift them by himself.

He repositioned his hand on the crystal rod, and in his mind’s eye, he reached out. He could see, clear as day, in the dark behind his eyelids, the set up of their living room. His wand warmed in his palm, suffused with his building magic, a white energy that would run from his body and out to affect the world with his will. He thought about it growing from within him, and then using the wand as a guiding light, as a funnel. He thought about two ghostly pale hands streaming from the tip of the wand, one going towards Sollux while the other went to Feferi. He thought about the magic hands joining with those the other two might use, and making them fly. There was a thrill, always, in his power making things happen. No matter how long Eridan had been a witch, there was always the deep-down excitement of the realization that he was powerful. That his whims could shape the world. Every affirmation of it was another point in his favor.

Now, he focused on that feeling.

He could hear the sound of static from somewhere nearby. His palms nearly buzzed with energy, the one grasping his wand white-hot. It wouldn’t hurt him. It never did. It was him. Sometimes it felt like more him than his body did. 

As if from very far away, Feferi gasped. 

Eridan opened his eyes. 

The first thing he noticed was that he was higher up than he had expected. Not just a few inches or a couple of feet off the cushions of the couch, but hovering, bobbing in the air, less than a foot from the ceiling. It was uglier up close, the textured finish bumpy and uneven, like cottage cheese. That knowledge was going to bother him forever.

The second thing he noticed was that Feferi was equally high up. 

She caught his eye and grinned wide, the full force of it like an exploding sun. Orbiting her was his magic like he’d never seen it, all shot through with red-blue-purple lightning that tinted it lavender at the edges. As he watched, she lifted her arm, and the magic followed her, shifting to contain her as she moved.

Eridan’s skin was tingling all over with something gentle. Twisting over his skin was Feferi’s familiar magic (pale green; Feferi’s powers sometimes changed color based on what she was doing, but the default was always green) and what must have been Sollux’s. Rather than combining, like it had on Feferi, Sollux and Feferi’s magics had swirled around each other in distinct, separate lines over his body, like a pinwheel lollipop. Feferi’s green curled and coiled like an exhalation of smoke. Sollux’s red and blue crackled around him. It was strong. Forceful. Eridan could feel it. 

He turned his head to see if they’d managed Sollux, too. 

Sollux’s eyes were still closed. He hovered just as high up, his head nearly bumping up against their ceiling. Eridan and Feferi’s magic coated his body in perfect halves, right down the middle, delineated instead of mingling where they met. 

As Eridan watched, Sollux opened his eyes. Their gaze met, and Eridan got to watch, with bone-deep satisfaction, as Sollux took in their positions, and his eyebrows shot up in surprise. 

Then his head actually hit the ceiling. Eridan laughed, his concentration lost, and Sollux and Feferi both came crashing back down onto their chairs. When he came down himself, he was still snickering, though he could already feel the sharp sting of failure for messing up so easily.

“I guess I can’t argue that was all me,” Sollux said, after a moment, grudging. He rubbed at the back of his head where he’d hit it, and Eridan almost started laughing again. 

“Well, you could,” said Feferi. “But you’d be super wrong.” 

“So I guess we’re tryin’ this?” Eridan asked. “Trial period, though, remember? This doesn’t prove anythin’.”

“Yeah,” Sollux agreed. “I guess we’re trying this.”

Feferi grinned at them both, residual static standing her hair up. 

“It proves a little bit. I hate to say I told you so,” she said, breathless and giddy. 

“She really doesn’t,” Eridan promised Sollux. “Don’t let her fool you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone that's reading this!! I haven't responded to comments yet because I wanted to wait until I put this chapter up, and am going to now, but I HAVE been reading them and I really sincerely appreciate everything that's been said.
> 
> Also! I was like 'man it'd be really nice if this chapter moved the plot along a lot because they're really not close at all to getting together so far' and then the writing was like 'that'd be cool, but how about instead of that it's just one really long scene?'. So. That happened. Thanks, brain.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is a lyric from Mind is On My Mind by Du Blonde.
> 
> Is this because I was mad The Craft didn’t end with happy gay polyamory? Maybe so.


End file.
